Thursday, March 12, 2009

And They Are Indisputable (Championship Week Edition)

These are the facts:

Greatest game I've ever seen. Hands-down. When #20 Syracuse and #4 Connecticut hooked up tonight, you knew the game would come down to the end. Both teams have a lot of talent -- 'Cuse with a great point guard and three-point bombers, UConn with the monsters in the middle. And sure enough, Eric Devendorf nailed a fall-away three at the buzzer to win a fantastic game. Except the ball left his hand about a hundredth of a second too late. The refs made the right call reversing it and the game went to overtime. Then, it went to five more overtimes. Not a typo -- Syracuse defeated UConn 127-117 in six overtimes. Six overtimes. Syracuse didn't lead at all in the first five, needing a last second three to tie it at the end of, well, one of the many overtimes. Johnny Flynn of the Orangemen played 67 minutes. In one game. And on and on -- you can check out any of the great stories anywhere. You'll also be able to check out the game on ESPN Classic soon and for a long time after that.

Maryland stays alive and they're helped by a bad loss by Miami, a loss by Providence, and a loss by Arizona. Wake Forest tomorrow and the Terps do not match up well against the Deacons' size. I actually wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see Wake win the ACC.

The big guys fell hard today as Kansas lost to Baylor, Oklahoma lost a nail-biter to Oklahoma State, Pittsburgh got beat soundly by WVU, and the aforementioned UConn loss. We all know that the very top teams losing in the conference tournaments doesn't mean much. Gives them more rest and gets them that much hungrier.

Some of the worst officiating you'll ever see in that Oklahoma game. OSU hit free throws to go ahead by one with 2.3 seconds left. The Sooners threw the length of the floor to Blake Griffin, who caught just outside the three-point line and chucked it towards the hoop, he missed, and the Sooner who tried to tip in the rebound missed. And then the clock started. They call OU-OSU games "bedlam" and this one most definitely was. The refs went to the video and made the correct call that the game should have been over, but what if the guy had hit the follow? That may have been after the clock should have expired.

Logged a little time with a very unimpressive Memphis win in the C-USA tournament. There aren't many bigger Memphis haters than me, even after last year. It's not like they even have Derrick Rose or CDR this year, anyway. You can't beat one of those crappy teams convincingly? Can't wait to see them play an underrated 7-seed like Texas A&M in the second round.